Good deal. I am looking forward to more of the interplay between the co-workers... I wasn't real sure how to do it so I had to pass the baton.. I
mean to be frank I was not completely sure how to develope the relationship of River, Hunter, Santiago, Kyra, and Willow... My own Uncle does
contracting. He lays foundations. I imagine four guys.. or three guys and one tough women can do quite alot... and they can always hire on extra
crew..

Still...I did not get into what I was REALLY thinking about... A hikeing trip. Lake loves the outdoors and camping and surviving off the land.... I
can imagine a fellow like this being real big on Bow Hunting. But could he drag Brandon away from the internet long enough to enjoy a breath of fresh
out door air at least once before the bombs drop

That could be comical and funny.

Maybe in exchange for getting him a gig with the crew Brandon could repay his brother by going on a camping trip LOL... The fun we could have there...

Say... didn't we have a few more folk interested in this collaborative writing exercise? I know where Mr_Luder stands and whats up there but I could
sworn a few other folks posted in this thread expressing an interest in working on this thing.

Yes, I just spoke with Mr. Toodles, and he is interested in writing. I asked him to post what we talked about here. It should add an interesting
aspect to the story. There are some other people that have shown interest in the story, but are already involved in writing for other stories. Seems
like it has some people following it, so if we write for a little while maybe we will get more.

I will be writing in the position of the leader of a Local Towns Militia. We are conspiracy buffs who just knew something like this would happen. So I
decided o take up arms and protect our town against the advancing US military designed to enforce martial law against us.

My name will just be my screen name. Mr. Toodles.

My initial post will have more details as to what we do and how we do it.

Thanks, Toodles - I never intended to stop writing, I just lost the creative drive to keep going in the Space Opera and didn't want to bog you guys
down with an ineffective Captain on the Penelope. I'm sure Asher is going to be fine. I have noticed that the threads have slowed down over there
considerably, though.

The idea being (and I am pretty sure DesertDreamer agrees) That we should take off from where the story left off.

Meaning the next entry should of been finishing off the New years eve party OR if you followed the working thread here... To just fast forward into
spring.

Unlike the other collaborative writing projects that invite folks to write for each individual character the Idea in this project would be to PICK UP
the story from where the last writer left off.

Not to write from a individual perspective but from a whole perspective.

Granted I kicked it off from Lakes View point. But that was only for narrative purposes. And it was only for one paragraph. I am not writing as lake
or any one person.

As I said The idea being to pick up from where the last person left off.

I ran out of steam at the New Years episode and left it to the next person to finish the New Years party and then the idea was to take us into the
season of spring... then summer then fall then Winter again then the EVENT and from there into the future. Back story was to be established first and
then we go on to the MEAT of the story....

Soooo...

We gotta do something about the current form of the story....and I am not sure what...

But in the future please remember that we should pick up from where the last write left off... and write from a whole perspective as opposed to an
individual perspective.

Desert Dreamer: Sounds great Luder! If you just want to do your character we can work with that, just let me know.

I'll have to see if this is for me then honestly, because I already mapped out a ton of stuff for SSG Thomas and his journey. I didn't know you
guys wanted to write like that.

In the Opera, we collaborated on overall events and story arcs, etc. We still retained our own unique characters throughout the story. I'm not
trying to muck around with anyone's creative ideas though, please don't think that for an instant.

Well This is really something for Desertdreamer to chime in upon too. I can not speak for the whole of it all as this is a collaborative effort and
its DDs puppy.

As I understood it back story was still trying to be established..... I ran out of steam in the new years party scene and was hoping someone else
would pick it up... otherwise you guys would have to rely on my to muddle through the rest of that party

I liked what you had.... but I am thinking that it is more zero hour stuff for when we get to the MEAT of our story as opposed to the back round info
building up to the good part..

Like I said... This is where DesertDreamer should have the l;ast word as he would be the architect of this project....

Still just to say.... it was my understanding that we were all gonna pick off where the last one left off taking the story to all sorts of strange
places no one person could possibly fathom.

Well hey, no hard feelings or anything. I'll wait until the bombs drop to bring in SSG Thomas then. I kind of want to start him up 12 hours or so
right before the actual attack to explain his lead-up to the "martial law" stuff that inevitably happens.

I didn't really feel like the stuff I had was where I wanted it for his entrance, so I'll rework it and just bide my time.

Wow guys....sorry for the confusion here. I have been working like crazy lately, and I am a shift worker....so have not been around much. The way I
intended for the story to be was indeed for the next person to pick up where the story had left off. Myself and Titorite will be writing from a global
perspective, not just one character, we will basically be writing for all characters...EXCEPT the ones that I have talked about with Luder, etc.

Luder, hopefully I did not mislead you...if I did, I apologize. I am all for you having your own character. I could tell that is how you may be most
comfortable when writing. But, if you want to write that way, we would have to discuss when your character would come into play. He may not be in
there much now....but later, he would be a pivotal character....with lots of writing to be done. I just figured we would collaborate on it, and when
the time was right it could be just another part of the story from another aspect. You can still write in your character, and I hope you still will,
we just need to figure out when he will come in.

Mr. Toodles, your part of the story really jumped ahead of where we were currently at. I agreed to having you write as someone that is in charge of a
local militia group, and I still have no problem with that, but that part of the story needs to be closer to the actual event...as a matter of fact,
it would be coming up very soon. As I told Luder, if you want to write from only that perspective, that is fine, but we need to collaborate a bit more
and make sure that it is going to be at the right time and not jumping too far ahead. As I told Luder, I really hope that you will stay on board and
continue to write.

Guys (and ladies...lol), I realize that this is a different style of story writing. I wanted it to be different. I like to be able to write from the
perspective of ALL the characters, and not just be limited to one, but I realized that was not for everyone. I did not want to shut out other good
writers that may want to write from a single person's perspective. It does make it a little harder to write the story, but with proper collaboration,
we should not have any problems. There is a pro and a con to writing for just one person;

Pro: You alone will write for that character. others may talk about that character, but you will write the actual dialogue.

Con: You may not get to write as often as you would like.

Now, in your single character writing you will more than likely have to have conversations with some of the other characters, which means...you will
be doing some writing as the other characters. As long as you collaborate in the working thread with the other writers as to which direction we are
trying to go in, there should be no problem. That way, you don't take the character that you are not usually writing for in some off the wall
direction.

I hope this clears things up (clear as mud probably! LOL). I do not want any hard feelings with anyone here. These types of things are bound to happen
on a collaborative writing project guys, so let's not let this throw a kink in things! Let's go ahead and stop with the U2U's and only talk out in
the public forum about ideas. I think that will make it easier. Once again, I apologize if i have mislead anyone. I assure you that was not my
intention. i value all of your opinions, and I think that all of you have your own unique style to bring to the story.

I am going to write the next part of the story where Titorite left off. I will finish the New years Eve party and take us closer to spring/summer and
start getting things setup for the event. Mr. Toodles, please hang onto your last post, I am going to have it removed for right now, but it can be
used in the very near future. Thanks guys!

I could still remember the days when this town was peaceful. When everyone knew eachother and there was not much to worry about. At times I
could still feel the warm sun during the spring time. When no one had a care in the world.
It quickly fades when I see that flash in my head. The flash and then the ear breaking boom.

The blast didn't hit our city but it was felt and seen almost 300 miles from ground zero. Right after the bombs fell, the US military mobilized every
member of the Army, Navy, Marines and National guard onto its own citizens. Forcing martial law on every one. We stood up. We fought back and have
held strong for some time now.

No one really knows how long it has been since the bombs fell. The EMP from the explosion fried everything electronic we had. Guns still worked. And
that is all we needed. That, and our hands to grow our own food. I guess we got lucky that the soil is still fertile here and that our food does not
grow poisonous.

I looked up at the sun "Danny, it's almost 5 o' clock. Get everyone ready. Night is coming soon and we need to be prepared in case they
attack".

"YES, SIR" said Danny.

This was no way to live. Freedom at what price? Fear, sadness and anxiety. I lost count of the sleepless nights a long time ago.

As night approaches, I raise my gun to the air and fire off a few rounds to let anyone lurking nearby that we are ready.

As for those two posts which were edited, it's a very simple thing for me to fill those posts with relevant text. Please send me the text you'd
prefer be in those empty posts and I'll edit them in as I get it.

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